


stolen from the gods

by adelheid



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: 8x04, AU, Drunken Confessions, Drunkenness, F/M, Possessive Behavior, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 10:50:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18737530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adelheid/pseuds/adelheid
Summary: Jon had lied. He was more than a little drunk. 8x04.





	stolen from the gods

**Author's Note:**

> i felt a mighty need to write a fix-it, don't judge me.

_you ask me what i'm thinking about_

_i'll tell you what i'm thinking about_

_whatever you're thinking about...._

 

 

  
Jon noticed the moment she turned and walked away. It was difficult not to. She moved right past him, skirts billowing unhappily.

It felt like a dismissal, cold air lingering at the back of his neck. 

He tried to keep smiling. Did not look after her. 

In the first moments, staring down at her empty chair, he felt angry.  _You were smiling earlier. You were happy. What did I do?_

He knew Sansa had plenty of reasons to find fault with him, but tonight was about celebration, wasn't it?

One brief sojourn stolen from the gods. 

Couldn't she give him that? He'd wanted to bask in her happiness, just for one moment. 

He took one look at his dragon queen standing in her distant corner and swallowed the rest of his wine.

Dany was smiling uncertainly, hopefully. 

She was beautiful in her sadness. He felt sorry for her, for them. 

He knew what she wanted and he wished he could want it the way she did. He wished he could be the man everyone wanted him to be.

It would've been easy to bridge the distance, go to her, gratify her need for him. He could have kissed her tenderly in front of everyone and so make a silent promise to never reveal who he was. 

Easy words, easy kisses. Perfectly impossible.

Jon hated the growing labyrinth before him. He liked the steady, single path. But everywhere he turned, someone was digging fresh tracks. 

Tormund pulled him into another victorious embrace.

"He's little, but he's got a sting. When you least expect, our king  _strikes_." 

Dany turned her chair slightly away. 

Jon grinned foolishly and drank more wine. 

 

 

 

Sansa ran the brush through her hair. She could never forego thoughts of her mother at such times. She missed her soothing caress. She missed her steady counsel. 

But what would her mother even say? What  _could_  she?

She'd likely be appalled. 

She'd more condemn than comfort. 

_Of all the brave men around you, men who'd give their life for you, men who'd honor you, you chose to love him. The boy who stole my peace. Not only a man devoted to another woman, but your usurping brother._

Sansa dug the brush into her scalp. No, her mother would not be so heartless.

All she would say was, _oh, my sweet summer child. You never learn._

Sansa blinked away the moist. She wouldn't cry, she wouldn't even whimper. She would keep brushing her hair and hope that the feelings sank below the surface. 

When she stared in the mirror, she shuddered. It was as if she had suffered a blow, worse than the terror of the crypts. She had never quite come to terms with her unspoken love until tonight. She had refused to entertain it, had considered it a child's fancy. Something the "little bird" would have dreamed of, once upon a time. But not her.

Yet, to see him alive and laughing with her tonight, it broke the dam inside her. They had not smiled at each other in such a long time. 

Sansa set down the brush. 

She knew his departure for King's Landing was inevitable and a part of her wondered if maybe the distance was a good thing, after all. 

She quieted a sob in her throat and began to unlace her corset, feeling the armor slowly crumbling. 

Something shifted in the mirror, a shadow. 

Sansa grabbed the blade resting on the table and whirled around, red hair like an angry comet.  

In the first instant she thought she might've conjured him. 

He couldn't be here.

Jon leaned against the bedpost, teetering. Eyes wide, blown. 

Sansa breathed harshly. "How did you get in here-"

Jon pointed vaguely towards the vestibule. "You forgot to, uhh, draw the bolt."  

Sansa's chest kept moving up and down. "You scared me half to death."

"Worse than a wight?" he asked with a small, lopsided smile. 

Sansa took a moment to reflect. "Yes." 

Jon guffawed. He always looked boyish when he laughed like that, when it seemed to come from a secret place inside him. It disturbed her.

"You're drunk." 

"Only - a little." 

Sansa dropped the blade in her lap. She realized with a small jolt that her shoulders were bare and her corset was sliding down her waist. If she got up or moved, she would give him a sight to behold. She would be half-naked in front of him.

The last time she had been this naked...but she did not let the horror resurface. 

She had to keep her hands over her chest. All she had to do was stand still.

Sansa raised her chin. Her heart climbed steadily to her throat. Maybe he was a conjuration, maybe this was all a terrible dream. 

"Did you drink from Tormund's horn?" 

Jon's eyes were locked on the luminous bare flesh, gilded golden by fire. He looked as if he were contemplating the abyss.

He couldn't wrest his gaze from the forbidden territory. 

Perhaps it was just the shock of seeing her like this. 

"Aye."

Sansa swallowed. "You shouldn't have." 

And she did not know what  _should's_  she was referring to exactly. 

Jon smiled, but it was not a smile giddy with drunkenness. 

"You said I should drink. You said you believed in me." 

Sansa looked down. "I often do." 

"But not - not always?" 

She shrugged. "I would be doing you a disservice. It pays to be doubted sometimes."  

Something dark and obscure flickered in his eyes, an ancestral hand stealing the light. "Why'd you leave?" 

It sounded like an accusation, but there was no room for courtesy, no room for mincing words. Just the brutal, undead core of him. Seeking her approval, while cursing it. 

"I left because I was tired."

Jon shook his head. "You're never tired."

Sansa stiffened. Her spine felt as inflexible as Valyrian steel.

"I haven't had a decent sleep since the battle. I'd like to rest now. Or do you plan on sitting there all night?" 

Jon stepped away from her bedpost. 

He started walking towards her. Steadily, one path. 

Sansa tried not to give up the game.  _Fight every fight in your mind_ , that's what she'd learned. But this wasn't a fight. Inside, she was panicking. 

"I haven't slept either," he murmured as he stepped closer to her.

His eyes canvassed the arch of her shoulder blades, the plunge into her unraveled corset. 

Sansa parted her lips. She had never felt this kind of fear, the fear of the familiar, the fear of something inside her. 

What troubled her most was that this wasn't the first time he was looking at her like this, _not really_. But it was only now, late at night, after a desperate war with the undead, after a sordid burial, after the loosening spell of ale, that she could see it. 

It shook her to the core. 

She'd always been frustrated with his muted looks, never quite understanding them.

Did he even understand himself?

"You're drunk," she said it again, as if grasping for a last harbor. 

Jon lifted his hand, fingers trembling, hovering over the exposed collarbone. 

"I'm - I wasn't drunk the other times."

"The other times?"

"When I wanted you." 

It was so simple, so straightforward. Mad. 

Sansa opened her mouth. She swallowed cold air. It made her throat hurt. 

"Jon -"

"Why'd you leave?" he asked again, oblivious to her shock.

His fingers were poised under her chin. 

Her voice trembled. "You k-know why." 

Suddenly he was bending down, lowering himself before her.

His hands settled on her thighs where half of her dress lay in distracted folds. 

Sansa was trapped. She felt his touch exploring the warmth of her lap.

Jon gazed up at her. 

"Would you hate me if I..." 

"If - if you what?"

Jon did not answer. He pulled her towards him gently and rested his head in her lap.

He stood like that for a moment, savoring the feeling. And then he buried his nose in the folds of her dress. 

As if he was ashamed. 

Sansa was trembling. 

He pressed a warm, chaste kiss to the inside of her thigh. He kissed the bolt of wool. His fingers lifted the folds and he pressed another kiss between her thighs, lips dragging against the damp, sweet patch of her shift.

Sansa put a hand over her mouth to muffle a cry of surprise.

She could feel it. Even though his mouth had not touched skin, she could feel everything. 

He pressed more feathery kisses to her dress. All the while, the heat of his mouth seemed to speak a different language, seemed to say, _I don't want to hurt you, but I want to tear it off you, I want nothing between us. I'll protect you. I'll keep you safe. It won't hurt. Just let me...let me...Sansa, let me...._

He had seen the Lady of Winterfell offer benediction to so many men. Theon, Tyrion, The Hound...allies and friends and traitors.

Where was _his_ benediction? 

He nuzzled his nose against her dress.  

"You hate me, don't - don't you?" he mumbled foggily. 

He raised his head to look at her. 

The muted looks again, the pain that she had not been able to decipher. 

Sansa couldn't help brushing her fingers against his jaw.

Jon closed his eyes briefly. It was torture.

"I can't hate you. I wish I did," she said softly, brushing her thumb against his chin. She felt the imprint of a scar. 

"It doesn't have to be like this," he said, voice thick with want. "I - we can - we _could_ \- I need to tell you something..."

Sansa shook her head. Apprehension coiled in her belly. "Please,  _don't_. Whatever it is, you're not being yourself right now. I - I don't want you to say something you will regret tomorrow."

She wouldn't be able to bear it if he did.

Jon clenched his jaw. 

"Then I'll wait."

He removed his hands slowly, raised himself clumsily. 

Sansa exhaled sharply, felt terror and disappointment and relief. And love. Love coursing through her like wildfire.

"I'll wait," he repeated, taking a few steps away from her, walking as if in a daze.

He paused by her bed, stared down at it, seemed to see the future in its folds. 

"And so my watch begins," he murmured, tracing the furs with his finger. 

Sansa did not register the words at first. 

But when she did it was too late.

Jon had collapsed on her bed. He'd had fallen down into a stupor.

Sansa remained where she was, clinging to her corset. 

She watched him sleep, riveted by the sound of his breathing.

Her quick mind was drawing a blank. 

She knew that it would spell trouble if anyone saw him walking out of her chambers in the morning. She knew and yet could not bring herself to wake him.

She rose and undressed quickly, put on a thick woolen dress. 

If he had seen her nakedness he did not let it show. He slept like the dead. She almost wanted to laugh.  

Sansa sat down on the other side of the bed. 

She had never imagined sleeping with him like this, like children. 

She lay down next to him, keeping her distance. 

She would only rest her eyes a moment. Then she would think on what he'd said.

If she could. 

 

 

 

In the morning, there was no distance between them.

His arm had come around her waist and his nose was buried in her hair.

He'd pulled her to him, made sure he was there to warm her. Somehow, he always knew when she was cold. 

Sansa fit against his body like armor. They were joined together.

He would wake up first and think he was dreaming.

She would wake up later to an empty bed and the phantom of a lingering touch on her cheek. 

But what had been said and done in the night would never go away.

It was the beginning of the end.

 


End file.
